Moreno Family Christmas card shoot

Around Halloween, my friend Jodi from work asked me to take her family's picture for their Christmas card. She and her husband Jeff have two ridiculously adorable girls, and I love them to pieces. I was excited, honored, and nervous. Mostly nervous. What if I couldn't get any good shots? What if they realized I'm a fraud of a photog? What if I broke out in flop sweat? What if I totally forgot how to use my camera?

I'm such a positive person.

It ended up going well. I even got some good shots...which when you look at these cute faces, you realize it's not hard to capture that cuteness.

The Morenos: Jeff, Jodi, Corinne, and EliannaMommy and Ellie

Daddy and Corinne


Daddy and Elianna

Miss Elianna, contemplating the state of the world, no doubt.

Corinne...I just love her big brown eyes.


I learned so much from that one day, and I'm so grateful to Jodi and Jeff for giving me a shot. Thanks guys!

Brrr...yummy

I love the snow.

I love beer.
Perfection.

Checkers

The thing I love most about photography is that ANYTHING can become interesting through the lens of a camera. On a trip to Phoenix, my friends and I made a pit stop in Buckeye, AZ to eat at the Cracker Barrel. CB is nowhere to be found in California, so when I see that gold and brown sign looming over a highway, I can't resist the urge to pull over. Their chicken and dumplings call to me, not to mention their biscuits and gravy.

Wow. Food distracts me SO quickly. Back to photography. My pals and I were sitting outside the Cracker Barrel, trying out the lineup of fabulous rocking chairs when we sighted the oversized checkers. Who knew that a crappy set of checkers could be striking?

But then, we go and ruin the artsy moment by taking pictures like this one of me:

A cracker. On a barrel. At Cracker Barrel.

Keepin' it real....

JK

William

And finally, William...the youngest of the two boys in the previous posts. William is just as sweet and lovable as the first two, with a streak of adventure in him. He's got that curious twinkle in his eye!

Greg, Jack, and Will, thanks...I'll take you to the park anytime!

And to Dave, thanks for letting me take endless pictures of your cute kids! :)

Jack

In my continuing effort to post photos, I'm back. This post will focus on Jack, Greg's (from the previous post) younger brother. Truly, such a sweet boy....how can you not adore this little face? This first one is one of my favorites from the entire day:

Thanks Jack...you're just a super little dude.

Greg

I haven't posted a picture of anything in months. In fact, I almost forgot I had a photo blog. So let's fix that.

Below are pictures of Greg. He's the oldest son of my friend, Dave. He loves Bumblebee from Transformers, so ANYTHING that's yellow is super-cool to him. When we got to the park and discovered the big yellow slides, he was one happy little clam.

same thing, black and white....

Let's keep the B&W drama going...

How can you not love this little guy? Thanks for being a super model, Greg. :)

New Hope, Pennsylvania

My newest blog obsession is the Pioneer Woman. She's a blogger/self-taught photographer, and I love reading her posts and looking at her pictures. In one of her posts, she played with the different aspects of Photoshop to show all the things you can do to a single shot. I absorbed as much of post as I could.

Since I'm still discovering the aspects of the photo editing program I found on my computer yesterday (which I figured out is just Microsoft Picture Manager), I decided to also post a few versions of the same shot, to show the different things that I'm able to do. I'm sure that when I look back on this in a few years, and I've become a master Photoshopper, I will laugh at how excited I am about my amateur efforts at this limited program I'm working with.

Over the holidays, I visited my family in New Jersey. We went to New Hope, Pennsylvania for a day trip, and I got a cool shot of the theater in town. I assume it used to be some sort of mill before it was converted into a theater.


Here is the original shot:





And now here it is in a sepia tone. I love the way the clouds look, almost surreal:





And finally, black and white. Cold and stark, but interesting nonetheless: